TOW #12- The Lucifer Effect

As discussed in my previous IRB post, Philip Zimbardo looks to answer the question: “What makes good people good bad?” Delving into his book, he didn’t waste any time in preparation to tell us his thesis. Apparently, there are multiple, as he says “On thesis of his book is that most of us know ourselves only from our limited experiences in familiar situations that involve rules, laws, policies, and pressures that constrain us,” (Zimbardo 291). It’s a haunting proposal, to think that we do not understand who we really are until we are unrestrained and without limits. Zimbardo asks us to think of ourselves as we read this book, and consider what actions we think that we’d take versus what may actually happen with the wrong influences. He claims that this could happen to any of us. Even the best of us can become tainted. The most significant tools that he uses to draw his readers in are the allusions. The title itself is an allusion, referencing God’s favorite angel, Lucifer, who eventually fell from heaven and soon took his place in hell as the ruler. He also addresses a work that later became a bible of the Inquisition, The Witches, which he calls “the first documented sources of the widespread use of the dispositional view to understand evil and rid the world of its pernicious influence…” (Zimbardo 356). He goes on to speak of how the process of eliminating evil brought a new evil onto itself: the torture and massacre of ‘witches’. Initially, Zimbardo presents these as a way to distance ourselves from true evils. Whether you view biblical tales as fact or fiction, Zimbardo knows that the reader feels that they are too far from the story to be able to actually relate. However, when the reader is then pulled back into reality, when the reader finally comprehends that this could be them, it develops an overwhelming sense of anxiety, and the need to do exactly what Zimbardo asks of his book. The reader begins to analyze what they’d choose to do when Zimbardo proposes his interactive scenarios and his personal experiments. I believe that this was a brilliant way for the reader to become immersed into the story. Despite it not being based on anything religious, I still think that it could bring in the religious audience due to the title and the allusions within the book. As for people like me, who are here for the science, it brings a factual and analytical allure that any psychologist would look for.